Bank withdrawals

The business article detailing the way banks are removing themselves from face-to-face contact with their customers (Weekend Herald, July 7) assumes the increase in online transactions is the depositors’ preference, but this is not so.

By closing branches, refusing to handle cheques, limiting cash transactions, making opening hours and days more restrictive, and answering only generalised inquiries by email or telephone, they are taking away our conveniences one by one.

They started by bribing depositors to go online with bonus interest offers, and tempting those always in a hurry to resort to automatic or statutory payments. They said online was easier, which it isn’t,. They said it was safer, which it isn’t. The scammers are getting more prevalent.

Banks are taking away our control of our own money, and we are doing their work for them, so they can shed more of their employees.

Anne Wilks, Devonport.